Scout fought with all his might, but the monster was stronger than he was. Before long, the creature was on top of him, pinning him down. Scout was unable to resist. He knew now that the hunt was over. The prey had been caught. He was finished.
“Gotcha!”
Scout’s friend Jim rolled backward, laughing with glee.
Scout sat up. “I think you broke my neck.”
Jim did not seem particularly repentant. “Man, you should’ve seen your face when I came flying out of that tree. I’ve never seen anyone look so scared. I bet you peed your pants!”
“I did not,” Scout said angrily. At any rate, he hoped he hadn’t. That would make it even more embarrassing.
Scout liked Jim—sort of. Since Scout and his family had moved to Blackwood, he’d been Scout’s best friend. You needed a friend, when you were a nine-year-old kid who’d just moved to some podunk town you’d never heard of before. Jim was kind of rough-and-tumble, but he had a good imagination. He played the Outsider game better than anyone, even if he did tend to bend the rules around.
“Who said you could climb up into trees, anyway?”
“All’s fair when you’re the Outsider,” Jim replied. “I nailed your butt but good. Gimme five.”
They went through the whole routine—high five, low five, on the side five.…
“All right,” Jim said, still ebullient. “Your turn to be the Outsider.”
“Great.” Scout examined his clothes, which were torn in two places and covered with mud. “I look like a monster.”
“Agreed.” Jim laughed. “Ready to go again?”
“Yeah, I’m ready.” Scout was always ready. He loved this game—even if Jim did always manage to beat him. Scout’s father wouldn’t play it with him; he said Scout was too old for this nonsense, too old to be pretending about monsters. But it was Scout’s favorite thing—good scary fun. Even better than the movies.
“Okay,” Jim said, “here I go. You gotta count to a hundred before you come lookin’.”
“Right.” Scout turned away. Just before he closed his eyes, though, he noticed something unusual. It was about a hundred feet away, across the field, behind that great big plant where half the town worked, including Scouts father. “What is that, a bulldozer?”
Jim stood beside him. “Nah. It’s a Brush Hog. Looks like they’re digging something up.”
Scout peered more intently. The giant mechanical claw was hauling something out of the dirt. But what was it? Buried treasure, maybe? An Indian graveyard? “Let’s take a closer look.”
Scout started forward, but Jim grabbed his arm, holding him back. “Don’t go over there!”
Something about the look in Jim’s eyes frightened Scout. “Why not?”
“Don’t you know what that is? That’s the Blaylock plant.”
“Yeah. So?”
Jim leaned forward. His voice dropped to a hush. “My daddy says it’s poison!”
“What, the whole plant?”
“Nah. The water. But if you go onto their property, you might get some of it on you.”
“Poison water? That’s silly.”
“If my daddy says it, then it ain’t silly!”
“Yeah, well, I don’t believe it.” It was crazy; it couldn’t be true. Especially since his father went to work there every day.
“Do you remember Billy Elkins?”
“Never heard of him.”
“Oh, that’s right. It was before you came.” Jim glanced over his shoulder. “Billy was a kid at our school. He was pretty cool. But he got real sick. And then he died.”
Scout’s eyes widened. That didn’t happen to kids their age, did it? “He died?”
“Yup. And so did a bunch of other kids in Blackwood. And it’s all because of the poison water. There’s some big lawsuit going on about it in the City. My daddy says they oughta burn the plant to the ground and execute all the men in charge.”
Scout was no Einstein, but he knew enough to realize that was unlikely. “I still don’t believe the water is poison.” Something in the field behind the plant caught his eye. “Hey, look at that.”
The Brush Hog had hauled something large and cylindrical out of the ground. It was encrusted with dirt; Scout couldn’t quite make it out. But he could see enough to know that it hadn’t grown underground naturally. Something had been buried down there. And for some reason, the men operating the Brush Hog were digging it up.
“What is that?” Jim whispered. “Looks like a big trash can.”
“Storage drum,” Scout replied, his voice hushed. “I’ve seen pictures in my dad’s office. But why would they be underground?”
“I don’t know. What do you thinks inside them?”
“Trash, maybe.”
“Oh, don’t be so boring. Maybe it’s pirate gold!”
Scout grinned. “Or maybe it’s the lost treasure of a wandering Mayan tribe.”
“Or maybe it’s the eyeless remains of the Outsider’s victims!” With that, Jim jumped on top of Scout, scaring him out of his skin and knocking him to the ground. They wrestled about in the mud, one on top, then the other, until they were both even more filthy.
They tumbled out of the ravine. Scout scrambled to his feet and started to run—when he was startled by an abrupt cracking noise.
It came from the field behind the plant, where the Brush Hog was doing its digging. One of the drums had slipped out of the claw and fallen to the hard earth below. The drum split. The contents tumbled out.
Scout gasped.
From his distance, it was impossible to tell whether it had its eyeballs or not. But it was definitely a human body that had spilled out of the drum. And the body was unmistakably dead.
Chapter 13
MIKE MORELLI WAS NOT happy about the discovery of yet another corpse. He was still buried in his investigation of the brutal murder of Harvey Pendergast and his family. He felt he was making progress, even if he didn’t exactly know toward what he was progressing. When a new murder hit, though, the pressure was always on from the Chief to give it the full-court press, on the theory that most murders are solved shortly after they occur, if they are solved at all. Therefore, Mike was faced with the prospect of either adding a new unsolved murder to his workload, or relegating this one to Lieutenant Prescott. Neither possibility pleased him.
As he trudged through the muddy grounds behind the Blaylock plant, he was glad he was wearing his trademark trenchcoat. The sky was gray and overcast; for once, the coat seemed appropriate. He just wished he’d worn some old shoes as well. The ground was wet and muddy and he was getting it all over himself.
He saw Tomlinson standing just outside the huddle of activity that inevitably surrounded the corpus delicti. “Over there?” he asked, pointing.
“Yes, sir. But if you’ve had breakfast … you may want to go slow.”
“Isn’t that what you said the last time?”
Tomlinson nodded grimly. “More or less.”
“Well, this can’t be worse than the last one.”
Tomlinson did not reply.
“Great. Just great.” Mike trudged past him, brushed the other crime scene personnel aside, and pulled the white sheet off the naked corpse.
He couldn’t tell what exactly had happened to this woman, but whatever it was, he knew it was bizarre. And sadistic. And painful. Her torso was riddled with punctures, sizable blood-ringed holes running up and down her rib cage on both sides. There was one over her heart as well. That was no doubt what had killed her, if she wasn’t dead already. Dried blood was everywhere.
Mike threw down the sheet. “Goddamn it, I hate my job.”
Tomlinson was at his side. “You don’t hate your job. You hate the person who was capable of doing this.”
“I hate my job because it forces me to think about sadistic bastards who are capable of doing this.” He walked away from the crime scene, putting a good distance between it and him, trying unsuccessfully to soak in some fresh air. Trying, because the
air wasn’t that fresh; it seemed sooty and polluted. Probably the plant had a smokestack or incinerator somewhere on the premises. Not that it mattered. Right now, a sudden jolt of pure oxygen probably wouldn’t make him feel any better.
When at last he returned to the center of activity, he was all business. “How did they come across the body?”
“According to the foreman, they were readying waste-disposal drums for transport to a waste-disposal site. He says it’s a regular procedure—something they do every week or so.”
“That’s all there is to it? They put the waste in the drums, then haul it off?”
Tomlinson nodded. “So they said. On a frequent and regular schedule.”
Mike crouched down, grabbed a handful of dirt, and let it trickle through his fingers. “This soil has been disturbed.”
“I noticed that,” Tomlinson said. “But the foreman explained that it was just the result of many feet trampling over the ground after the body was discovered, combined with the wet weather.”
Mike scanned the area surrounding him. The soil had been disturbed for a wide radius in all directions. It was almost as if the dirt had been turned, like something a farmer might do to freshen the topsoil.
Mike pushed back up to his feet. “Do we know who she is?”
“No clue. She was stripped naked when we found her.”
“Any idea how she was killed?”
Tomlinson shrugged. “Just the obvious. Something sharp and thin. Ice pick, maybe.”
“Maybe. Lot of tearing of the surrounding skin, though. What does the coroner say?”
“He says not to bother him until he’s finished his report.”
“Pompous ass. He’ll talk when I want him to talk.” Mike pressed a hand against his forehead. Calm down, he told himself. Don’t let it get to you. “Doesn’t look like the same M.O. as the last murder. Harvey.”
“Agreed. They don’t seem to have anything in common. Except above-average cruelty.”
“Christ. What a wonderful world we live in.” He turned, trying to think clearly. “Still, it’s a hell of a coincidence. Last victim was a Blaylock employee. This one turns up in Blaylock’s backyard.”
“True. But coincidences do happen.”
“Not on my turf.” Mike surveyed the scene, watching the technicians go about their specialized tasks. “Still, we have to go by the book. Until we have reason to think different, we’ll treat this as a separate murder inquiry.” He paused. “Even if my gut tells me otherwise.”
Mike fumbled pointlessly in the pocket of his coat. Days like this he really wished he hadn’t stopped smoking. “Find out who she is, okay? Start by taking her picture inside the plant. Show it around. I’m betting someone will recognize her.”
“Consider it done, sir.”
“I want all the reports from the crime scene teams on my desk as soon as possible.”
“Understood.”
“There’s not much I can do until we know who she is. But the longer that takes, the less likely we are to find the killer.”
“Right.”
“Until we have a tangible reason to think otherwise, we have to assume these killings are unrelated. Which means there are two killers on the loose.” Now that was a chilling thought. Two killers. Two men in one county capable of committing hideous and sadistic atrocities. And both still at large.
He cast his eyes toward the steely sky. “We have to catch them before they strike again.” He paused, then looked directly into Tomlinson’s eyes. “We have to.”
It was the cop again.
His piercing green eyes, pressed up against the high-powered binoculars, recognized the detective as soon as he arrived. Sherlock Holmes at the scene of the crime.
He would be lying to himself if he didn’t admit he was a trifle concerned. He had thought this investigation would be handled by some local yokel Blackwood cop. The fact that Tulsa’s top homicide investigator had been called in suggested that someone somewhere at least dimly perceived the possibility of a connection. True, the great detective was still light-years behind him. He had no clue what was happening, much less why. But at the same time, certain facts could not be denied. All had not proceeded according to plan. When he had planted the body in the barrel, then put the barrel in line with the others for the usual Saturday burial, he had expected the body to disappear, not to be seen for decades, if ever. How was he to know that, contrary to all prior procedure, the corporation had decided to start digging up the drums?
What were they thinking, anyway? He didn’t know what the deal was, but he had a strong hunch it related to the lawsuit, the one described in the document he’d found in Maggie’s purse. Someone was trying to bury the evidence. Or unbury it, in this case.
Could the great detective put two and two together? True, he now had the corpse, and he would undoubtedly discover who she was. He would discover the connection to Blaylock—but that wasn’t all that unusual, especially in this one-horse town. Would he realize that the killings were linked? Even if he suspected as much, would he ever be able to uncover the secret?
There was one way, he was forced to admit. If the cop discovered the connection between the victims—and found the others.
Now more than ever, the green-eyed observer realized he had a double reason for eliminating his former colleagues. To recover the merchandise—and to wash away the only trail that could lead the authorities to him.
He laughed, safe and secure in his distant hiding place. That detective had no idea what was going on, any more than he realized he was being watched at this very instant. He could never catch him. He was Moriarty, wasn’t he? Even the original Holmes was never able to outthink Moriarty; he could only defeat him by brute strength, by tossing him off a waterfall. This detective would never have that opportunity. He would never come close.
And if he tried—punitive measures would be taken. Immediately.
It was time for a celebration, he declared silently. He reached into his always-loaded overcoat and withdrew a bottle of white wine, a still-chilled bottle of chardonnay. From another pocket he withdrew a corkscrew—its spiral blade caked with blood.
He plunged the corkscrew into the bottle and slowly withdrew the cork. The wine fizzed over the top, the effervescent yellow liquid mixing with the blood—creating a faintly crimson overflow.
He poured it into a glass and drank with great enthusiasm. Even if he had not yet recovered that which he sought, he could take time for a bit of revelry.
And then, when he was finished, it would be time to kill again.
Chapter 14
BEN TRIED TO REMAIN calm as he scanned the front lobby of his office.
“You know, Christina, when I told you I thought we needed to redecorate our office space, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
Christina smiled thinly. The decor of the front lobby had indeed changed—it was buried in paper.
“Couriers from Raven, Tucker & Tubb dropped by this morning. Twelve of them. They had to cart the stuff over in a truck.”
Ben reeled as he looked at the vast quantity of documents. Stacks upon stacks of photocopied documents filled the waiting room. Thousands upon hundreds of thousands of pieces of paper—he couldn’t even begin to make an accurate estimate. The cost—not to mention the manpower involved—must have been enormous.
“You think they’ve produced everything they have?” Christina asked, although in truth she already knew the answer.
“Of course not,” Ben replied. “They’ve given us a little bit of what they have, and buried it in a huge mass of crap that has nothing to do with the case. The problem is, we can’t complain to the court about what they’ve failed to produce—”
“Until we know exactly what they have produced. Which, judging from the magnitude of the production, would take roughly—”
“Forever. Which is exactly the point.” Ben pressed his lips together. “Colby is well aware of the fact that he’s up against a firm with one lawyer—”
“One and a half,” Christina corrected.
“—while he has dozens of associates at his disposal. He’s going to press that advantage to the max. He’s going to try to bury us.”
“He also sent this,” Christina said.
It was a bill for the photocopying—a huge bill, which the plaintiffs were obligated to pay. “And now he tries to exercise his other great advantage. The fact that he has tons of money at his disposal. And we don’t.”
“That’s so … unethical. Trying to win a lawsuit with these bullyboy tactics.”
“Unethical, maybe. But hardly uncommon. More like standard practice, for big defense firms.”
“So what are we going to do about it?”
“Well, we can’t begin to afford to hire help. So there’s really only one thing we can do.” He grabbed a pile of paper from the nearest stack. “We roll up our sleeves and get to work.”
One glance at the front page of the Tulsa World was sufficient to give Fred a piercing headache. Damn, damn, damn!
The membership roll of their little club was once again diminished.
He walked out of the kitchen, strode through his living room, and turned the dead bolt on his front door. What was he going to do? He had to do something. He couldn’t just sit here, waiting for his former friend to come sashaying through the door, swinging his sledgehammer or whatever gruesome instrument of torture he was using this week.
But what could he do? He’d tried to get vacation time; no go. The merchandise was worthless to him now, although it would be riches beyond measure in such a short time.…
Which would not do him a damn bit of good if he was dead. He had to face reality—he was not safe. Anywhere. He had tried to pretend he would be safe if he stayed at home at night and kept the doors locked. Yeah—that’s probably what Harvey thought, too. And Fred’s house wasn’t nearly as secure as Harvey’s. Plus, he lived alone.
There were things he could do to make his place more secure. But would that be enough? He could run, flee the city, hide out somewhere. Of course, that’s probably what Maggie did. And she still ended up stuffed in a steel drum.
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